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From: Michelle Foaartv <br />To: PublicComment <br />Subject: Item 9.A: Redwood City Resident for Defunding the RCPD <br />Date: Monday, June 22, 2020 1:22:45 PM <br />Dear City Council, <br />My name is Michelle Fogarty, and I am a resident of Redwood City. <br />While you have heard from citizens requesting the police be defunded, and from law <br />enforcement members and their supporters who disagree, I write with a unique position. Over <br />two decades of work in this county, I have been a 9-1-1 dispatcher, court officer, records clerk, <br />warrants clerk, and criminal intelligence analyst. My dad was a chief of a police, and my <br />husband is currently employed as a law enforcement officer (not in this city.) <br />Yet, I add my name to the list of voices urging you to reject the proposed budget which <br />allocates $49M toward an outdated and punitive policing system that makes many residents <br />feel unsafe. <br />You have received correspondence from others with the statistics on our police funding <br />increases, the disparity compared to cities of similar size, and the more common sense, cost- <br />effective alternatives being applied both locally and out-of-state. You have been provided <br />research on how body cameras and increased bias training don't mitigate the problems at <br />hand, so I won't waste my limited time reiterating the same. <br />I will, however, state what I know to be true. <br />The Redwood City Police Department's crime statistics for 2018 report 177 violent offenses <br />and 1,254 non-violent offenses. This means that 88% of the reportable calls for service are for <br />such items as petty theft, vandalism, "cold" (reported after the fact) burglaries, etc. I also <br />know that most of these crimes are typically never even closed with an arrest disposition. So <br />why would the response and the report need to be completed by an officer with a gun? Or, as <br />is happening daily right now, why send someone with a weapon to investigate fireworks <br />complaints? <br />Why not <br />... reduce sworn staffing and invest more money into non -sworn patrol functions? <br />... have the plethora of traffic complaints and enforcement handled by non -sworn staff instead <br />of officers with guns? <br />...fund more conflict resolution programs? <br />...change the scope of sworn policing to mean utilizing work hours to interface with all the <br />residents they serve in settings that aren't emotionally charged, but still be available to <br />